Raising The Next President

We received some wise parenting advice today from an unlikely source. We visited the William Howard Taft Historic Site, the birthplace of the only man to serve as both President of the United States and Chief Justice of the United States. The park ranger's guided tour emphasized the importance of Taft's family, and the National Park Service brochure amplified the purposeful efforts of his parents in guiding his upbringing. Taft's mother Louise wrote about her parenting strategy in 1860, when Taft was three years old and the Civil War was about to begin. Louise Taft wrote, "I am more and more impressed with the responsibility of training children properly. It is what we are, not what we do in reference to them, which will make its impression on their lives." Listen again: "what we are, not what we do" that fulfills "our responsibility of training children properly." The brochure recounts the efforts that Taft's parents made toward that end, opening their home for Christmas sing-alongs, games and dances, dinners with Taft's friends, and discussions about slavery and women's suffrage with visiting celebrities. Taft fondly remembered his childhood as he matured into the President and the Chief Justice.

How do we fulfill our responsibility to raise our children properly? How do we use our homes? How will our children remember their childhood? I pray that we will have the same impression on our children that Louise Taft had on her future President and Chief Justice of the United States.